


When You're Down and Out (Give Me a Call)

by Justmethistime



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Fake Character Death, Family Bonding, Platonic Relationships, whoops did my tagging wrong the first time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-07 07:46:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18616249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justmethistime/pseuds/Justmethistime
Summary: It’s not a bad day to bite the dust, Tim Drake thinks as he walks on stage in front a crowd of what looks like a hundred reporters. The sun is shining through the usual Gotham clouds, the birds are chirping, you can hear the car horns honking from across the street, and he’s not even that blinded by all of the cameras. Not a bad day at all, especially considering the fact that, if he manages to pull this off, he can finally begin step three to his comprehensive forty-two step plan to taking down the demon’s head himself.





	1. A Good Day (Today)

It’s not a bad day to bite the dust, Tim Drake thinks as he walks on stage in front a crowd of what looks like a hundred reporters. The sun is shining through the usual Gotham clouds, the birds are chirping, you can hear the car horns honking from across the street, and he’s not even that blinded by all of the cameras. Not a bad day at all, especially considering the fact that, if he manages to pull this off, he can finally begin step three to his comprehensive forty-two step plan to taking down the demon’s head himself.

Tim takes a few deep breaths and begins talking at precisely eleven fifty-five. It’s for Wayne Enterprises new “let’s try and unfuck this city” (as dubbed eloquently by Jason) plan involving the sewer system, hoses, and lots and lots of money. Lots and lots and lots of money, probably enough to bankrupt at least four small countries. Certainly enough to seem entirely ridiculous, even for WE. Implausible and impossible. It should be his motto. At least, Tim thinks, it isn't really meant to be executed anyway. 

It’s exactly noon now. On a building two hundred and fifty thousand feet away, a sniper dressed like a ninja raises his gun to his shoulder, takes a few deep breaths in, and prepares to take the shot. He is one of the best marksman in the world. There is no way in hell he could miss. It’s practically taking candy from a baby. On the front steps of the Wayne Tower, the heir to the massive empire of millions, the heir who is only seventeen years old, pauses for breath in his speech and prepares to be shot.

Tim wonders how it will all look, wonders if he’s done enough to prepare for this moment. After all, it isn't everyday you dramatically fake your death in front of a crowd (and dozens of cameras broadcasting to the entire globe), you know? Is it going to work? Tim really hopes so. He wonders, too, if he’ll regret pretending to be dead for the next several months (if the plan works, that is. if not, then he’ll really be dead) from his family and the people of Gotham. He did good work as Red Robin, saving lives, helping people. He wonders if anyone will miss him, how much he’s going to hurt them all. Even Jason, stubborn as he is to admit any sort of affection for, well, anyone really. Mostly, though, he just hopes that nothing goes wrong. 

For the onlooking reporters, it looks like it happens in slow motion. The bullet flies past, too quickly to be seen, but Tim Drake seems to ignore the laws of time and space as he jerks back slightly and red begins to bloom at the front of his custom tailored three-piece suit. With almost a shocked look on his face, he begins to fall back, rocking on his heels. He crumples to a heap on the stage floor, all Drake dignity and grace forgotten. He wonders what his mother would think of him now. Never lose your cool, Timothy, especially not in front of other people. Well, it’s too late now and heck, he thinks, it’s not like he’s literally dying right now, or anything.

The reaction from the crowd is near instantaneous. Within seconds it is chaos. Everybody is out of their chair and running, afraid of ending up like the boy on the stage bleeding out. Some even try to snap pictures as they scramble. Vultures, Tim thinks, do not care if the animal is alive or dead before tearing into its flesh, so long as they get their fill. 

Bruce Wayne, sitting in the first row in his billionaire persona, springs up immediately. Sometime later, all he will remember about this moment is the panic he feels, like his insides have all been smashed together and then pulled tightly into a string. White-hot and waiting to pounce. He will remember distantly how he half-carried, half-dragged Tim off the stage and into a little nook of safety somewhere behind it. The bloodstain left by his son on the floor. He tells himself not to be sick.

“Hey, Tim. It’s me, open your eyes. Where are you hit?” 

Tim groggily shakes his eyes half open. Distantly, he can hear sirens coming.

“B?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” then, when Tim’s lids start to slowly flutter shut again, “You’re alright. You’re going to be alright. You’re just fine. You hear me? Just fine.” Bruce almost can’t bear to lie anymore, because as the red starts to pool and drip onto the floor, it is becoming increasingly obvious that Tim is not going to be any of those things.

“B? I-I-”. 

“Shhh. Tim, I’m here. The ambulance is almost here. It’s ok.”

“B. T-tell them for m-me. All o-of them. You t-too.”

“I will, I promise. Just try and keep your eyes open for me, alright? Eyes wide open. You’re going to be alright.” The wail of the sirens is a full-on scream now. Bruce can hear the distant shouts of the paramedics asking where Timothy Drake is. He can hear the screams of the reporters and committee members, still providing the soundtrack to one of the moments of his entire life, happening right in front of him. He can hear the footsteps behind him, the voices, the questions, the frantic search. He, with straining ears, thinks he can even hear the world turning. But the one thing he cannot hear, he will never hear again, not even with Clark’s superpowers, with the best device science can make, is Timothy Drake’s heartbeat or the sound of air going into his lungs. 

At precisely twelve thirty, on a beautiful day in Gotham City, in front of a crowd of nearly a hundred and fifty people, the young CEO of one of the world’s largest corporations takes a bullet through his chest and falls down to never get back up again. 

 

Ironically, it’s Jason who finds out first. Jason who tries to kill Tim on the regular, Jason who no one will talk to, Jason who’s pretty sure the Bats didn’t know his current cell phone number, or at least, told them to never ever call him again, even though he always, for some reason, picks it up.

He’s eating his regular brunch while nursing his regular post-success hangover and cursing his regular lack of food in the fridge (man, does he miss living with Alfred). He’s eating his nice little crumbs of corn flakes and his head hurts a little, his ribs are sore, but overall things are pretty alright, pretty great actually, until, suddenly nothing is.

“Oh hey, B. What’s up? Wait a second. Didn’t I tell you to never dial any of my numbers, ever again? Well, look at fuckin’ that. I did! So why don't you go somewhere else with your bullshit and leave me the fuck alone. I’m having corn flakes. They’re delicious.” Ok, maybe they aren’t, but a guy can dream can’t he?

This is usually the part where he hangs up, but, somehow, he has a feeling that something is wrong. Apprehension replaces annorance quickly when all he can hear is Bruce’s breathing, slow and steady like he’s trying to work his way up to something. Suddenly, the corn flakes don’t look so appetizing anymore.

“Ok, now I’m curious. B-man? Care to share what’s up with the rest of the class?”

Another pause. Jason feels the apprehension bleed into full on terror. Bruce is quiet, but never hesitant. He prefers his band-aids gone is one quick swoop (sometimes quite literally, mind you). Something very wrong is happening.

 

Is it Dick? Bat-brat? Replacement? Alfred? His heart’s really pounding now, drumming with a kind of thrilled rush, a kick from the pit, probably, making him feel like he can’t sit still. He’s gotta move, gotta run, gotta go and go until he can escape this foreign feeling that is sliding into his veins.

“Bruce. Spit it out. What’s going on, tell me now.”

“Jay--. It’s Tim.”

Oh heck no. This is not happening. Nope, Jason refuses to except this. It’s madness, is what it is. A mistake. Not the replacement. 

“Jason. Tim’s- Tim got shot-”.

“Where is he? How bad is it? Do you need me to beat up some guys?”

“Tim got shot. And he was just lying there. He- got shot. I’m at Gotham General now. But, Jason-”.

Jason thinks the world must going crazy when Bruce’s, Batman’s, the stoic mentor from his youth’s voice pitches upwards and almost seems to break as he finishes his words. No. This clearly not reality he has awoken to.

“Jason. He’s dead.”

“Bullshit.”

“He’s dead. I-I saw it myself. Tim’s not coming back.”

Jason Todd lets the phone drop at this, this new turn of events. He thought, he honestly thought that Bruce would be over this already- goddamnit.. Thought that Bruce could put down his foot after the way he himself was violently beaten to a pulp by the Joker and then blown-up in some random warehouse in Ethiopia and realize that placing a child in front of people with guns and knives and hearts full of evil was an absolutely shit-faced idea and stop it. That’s the logical assumption, right? He probably wouldn’t even have died if Batman decided that having a Robin was a really dangerous idea. Certainly, this fact didn't need to be proven twice.

Goddamnit. Not the replacement. The kid had been starting to grow on him, randomly inviting himself over (unwelcomingly at first) to Jason’s various apartment and safe houses with chinese takeout and root beer to discuss their latest missions and the numerous ways Nightwing and Robin were pissing them off at the moment. Jason remembers a constant stream of complaints from the both of them. Had the last time just been two weeks ago? 

“Jason? Jason.”

“What the fuck, Bruce. What the actual fuck. He. He was a fucking kid. I thought you would have at least learned from my example and--”.

“He was assassinated talking about his latest project with WE this morning.” Jason can hear Bruce taking a ragged breath in. “I know. What the fuck am I doing, what the fuck have I just-”.

Bruce’s voice breaks off at this, seemingly unable to continue. Jason’s mind goes blank for a moment, just white and blank. He can’t even blink. Murdered for being the fucking CEO of a fucking company? 

“What the fuck. What- Where are you? I’m coming down there right now.”

“Gotham General. Please. What am I going to tell Dick? Damian?”

“Fifteen minutes.” 

Jason hangs up and shrugs on his coat on his way to the door. It feels like nothing is making any sense, his feet are all tied and his thoughts feel distant. He thinks he’s in shock, but can’t quite seem to concentrate on any concrete feelings. Suddenly, though, the anger rears its head, a wonderful congratulations-you’re-not-dead gift from the pit. It cuts through all of the confusion and the swirling blankness of his thoughts, bringing in a grief that leaves him stumbling into a wall in its wake. 

No. Not Tim. It can’t be Tim. Tim-who-he-tried-to-kill. Tim-who-was-nice. Tim-who-he-liked. Tim-who-is-dead. Little brother. What the fuck is going on?

 

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and Dick Grayson is having a good day. Scratch that. He is having a great day. Beside him, Damian Wayne stomps angrily along. A butterfly lands on his nose. Dick, to his credit, doesn't even flinch when he jerks back sharply, scaring the butterfly off. 

“Grayson! This place is atrocious. I do not understand the importance of these creatures. We will be leaving for the tiger enclosures, promptly. I cannot stand it in here a moment longer.”

Yup, just another day at the zoo with his little brother. In fact, picture this: Damian Wayne surrounded by flowers in the butterfly greenhouse. This might just be one of the best days of his life. Running a little to catch up to him (dang, when did this kid get so fast?), Dick chuckles to himself at the forty photos he has just taken. Onward to go watch the tigers it is, then. He thinks he should let the kid off the hook a little, after all, they did come here primarily to look at the tigers (Dami’s favourite) and the elephants (reminds him of the circus, alright?). 

A little while later, after visiting the tigers and a few more enclosures, he and Damian are parked on a bench while licking ice scream. It’s the mid-afternoon and everything is kind of slowing down a little, all the crazy children are getting too tired to run around screaming, and, Dick thinks, it’s nice. Just him and his little brother relaxing on a park bench. It’s hard to remember how bad Damian can be sometimes, how demanding, how angry when it’s like this. Just the two of them sitting in the sun. Happy days.

A name on a nearby newspaper stand catches his eye and his heart nearly stops. Now he knows most of the time just how bogus these stories can get- Bruce Wayne is Batman?- but this one feels different. This one feels horrible and hot and just plain wrong, so stupefyingly wrong that he thinks he should sue them for even suggesting it. He pulls out his phone anyway.

It’s an instant bombardment of information. Texts from friends, texts from coworkers, texts from the goddamn Superman himself. Fuck. The ice cream cone lands on the floor. A logical thought in the sea of craziness - this can’t be right. He’d seen Tim this morning, wished him good luck for his upcoming presentation at the breakfast table before heading out with Damian. No, this is not happening. This is very clearly some kind of sick practical joke someone is playing on him. 

No, it’s not, a voice in the back of his minds humms. Clark wouldn’t do this. Wally wouldn’t do this. Nobody would do this to him. Death is not something they joke about like this, death is avoided and shunned and practically taboo to even mention. In their line of work, it is almost bad luck to talk like this. Oh fuck. Oh no. Tim-

“Grayson? Are you alright?”

Slowly, Dick turns himself around to face his brother. He can already feel tears on his cheeks.

“Grayson?”

“Oh, Dami. We gotta go, bud.”

Damian shoots up like a spring, ice cream long-forgotten. He looks wary and taunt. Old for his age.

“Is it Father? Has something bad happened to Father?”

“No, not Bruce. It’s-”.They’re sprinting back now. Dick feels like some sort of weight is pressing down on his chest, slowly squeezing him to death. “Dami. Something bad’s happened to Tim. Really bad. I don’t know if it’s true yet, but I think, I think it might be. Oh god.”

Damian glances at him minutely, eyes steeled and silent. Now, more than ever, he wishes he were better at deciphering what those looks meant. 

“What has Drake’s incompetence gotten him into now?”

“Damian, no. Tim’s not incompetent. Say something like that again and I’ll have Bruce bench you for two weeks.”

It’s the harshest he’s reprimanded Damian in a long time and Damian turns his head sharply to glare at him. Wisely, though, he keeps his mouth shut. They are almost at the exit.

When they finally sprint into the parking lot and into their (ridiculously expensive) car, Dick pulls out his phone and dials Bruce. There is barely time to wait as he picks up on the first ring.

“B, is it true? What they’re saying on the news? Is it?”

He’s lived with this man for most of his life. He’s been there with him through everything, so trust him when he says he can pretty much read him like a book. His face, his mannerisms, his different assortment of grunts, everything. Even his restrained silence.

Dick feels like the world is crashing in around him without Bruce having to say a single word.

“Yes.”

“Father? What’s true? What did Drake do?”

Damian looks at him, tears caught on his lashes and deathly pale and seems to freeze too, trapped in the news. His eyes widen and he turns away, unable to look Dick and his grief in the eye.

“Damian, Tim got shot. He’s- he died on the scene.”

Both of them in the car flinch back at Bruce’s statement. 

“Where are you? We’ll be there.”

Dick is surprised by how steady his voice is.

“Home.”

“Alright. We’ll, we'll be there in twenty minutes. See you.”

The call disconnects, but Dick has to take a minute to breathe before he can put his hands on the wheel. Oh Tim-- he hadn’t talked to Tim in a while. Hadn’t been close to Tim in a while, not since their last big fight. If he’d known, oh god. Tim. Babybird. What is he going to do?

Seeing no other option, Dick presses his foot down on the gas pedal and speeds off towards a home never again to be filled by his little brother. Damian shifts nervously beside him. Neither of them talk the whole way back. 

 

“WAYNE ENTERPRISES CEO SHOT AND KILLED IN FRONT OF CROWD”


	2. Sets the Heart Apart (Grief)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some little snippets of grief before the main story kicks in, I guess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two! Kinda filler?

A celebration, Damian decides, should not feel like this. This is too foreign an emotion, too elasticky and intangible, stretching beyond his attempts to grab it and stuff it in his mental box of things-I’ll-think-about-later. It’s a foreign emotion, but he’s felt it before. Almost instinctively knows what it is, knows how it finds him. He’d call it grief, but, well, it can’t be grief because it is Drake that is dead and Drake that he hated. 

He’s never liked Drake and certainly made threats against his personal well being constantly. He shouldn’t feel like this, like his insides have gone and turned themselves into a soupy mixture that swirling around inside him right how. The heaviness of all his limbs and their reluctance to movement. He should feel glad or, at least, he should feel cheated of the opportunity to take down his rival and prove for once and for all that he is clearly the better son and heir. It’s his birthright, after all. Yes, he should be angry. He should be fuming. He should track down the assassin himself to take revenge for losing his chance. What more is there to do? He should set the world on fire getting his revenge for losing his chance at proving himself. He is furious. 

He is not angry. Damian is sullen and sunken in. Listless. He feels like a paragon of the undead, supposes that maybe there’s something going wrong with him right now. Sure, he’s a superhero. Sure, he’s Robin. People around him die almost everyday. He seen muggings gone wrong, murder, explosion, corpses and corpses- piles of corpses, some of which he can put names and shared memories to. He’s killed. He’s been killed. His father has been killed. His brother died. He’s practically been a grief magnet, a tiny ball of human that grief seems to cling to like a new toy. Damian tells himself he, despite everything he did and everything he could have done- all the training and preparation the universe could have offered anyone- is a master at losing.

In the league, they taught him that sometimes the most important thing in a fight is the ability to look at your opponent and know when you’re beat. It’s a basic survival skill. You can’t get your revenge if you’re dead, after all. Know when to stand and fight, when to lay down your life to get what you want, know when to run, and when you have won. It all feels like nonsense now, in the car beside Dick. Complete garbage mixing together. This is a victory. This is clearly some sort of victory. 

Damian glances again at his oldest, most favourite brother. Dick seems to have left his body. His eyes are open and staring, but not really seeing, not really looking for things. His fingers are white against the wheel, hardly noticeable at all because the rest of him seems that exact shade of pale too. For once, he seems entirely out of Damian’s reach. Shell-shocked, Damian’s mind supplies. Worn and empty. Like, if he’s not somewhere outside of his body, he is somewhere deeply in it, folded in around himself, somewhere where no one can reach. Damian’s fear stabs at him repeatedly. Say what you will about a demon child, he doesn't like to see his brother like this.

The cave feels darker than it usually is when they get there. Bruce is sitting at the computer, hunched over the chair and frozen. Alfred is upstairs, polishing the silver. Jason is nowhere to be found. Damian finds that, for once, he feels at a complete loss of what to do. Even Dick, with his natural charisma and people skills seems to falter at the entryway. What is there to do? What do you say to your father and brother when they are mourning a brother you have never liked?

Damian forces himself forward. Even though Drake is not here, there are things that need to be done. He should really get started on his pile of math homework, too. Father hates it when his teachers call to let him know that he missed another assignment. Yes, Damian thinks, I’ll go do my homework. There’s nothing that can be done in here. He turns to go upstairs. 

Just as he moves, though, so does Bruce. He stands abruptly, sharp and imposing, still dressed in his expensive black suit. His very being commands attention, demands it from everyone in the room like a valiant stone figure. This is Batman: all edges, jutting and ragged, muscular and dark, seemingly wrapped in some new tragedy. A black patch, the Dark Knight. Damian feels a fear flutter in his chest, fear if this new side of his father who has never looked more like his grandfather. Bruce takes a breath in. 

“He wanted me to tell you. He-.”

Batman seems lost to Bruce now, he flickers and flickers and then disappears, leaving just old Bruce Wayne. His shoulders slump forward, making him look hopeless and helpless. Unbearably sad. His hands clutch at the desk. 

A silence stretches on. Nobody dares to move. 

Finally, when it almost becomes too much, too silent, Dick snaps out of his reverie to fill the empty space. It is, after all, what he does best. 

“Oh, B. It’s ok. We know. We’ve always known.” He manages a smile. “Little red.”

Peaceful almost, then darker, “How, how’d it happen?”

“Deadshot.”

“Ra’s?”

Damian flinches at the mention of his grandfather. Neither of them notice. 

“Probably. I have a few leads.”

“We’ll get them. If- if it’s the last thing we do, we’ll get them.”

Bruce turns around at this, his face completely neutral. Unreadable. 

Dick tries again. 

“Where’s Jason?”

“He was at the hospital with me. Left. Couldn’t-.” Bruce’s voice breaks. Damian stifles his shock as he watched his father almost seem to sob before he turns and leaves, footsteps thundering. 

Damian moves towards his room again. He needs time alone to think. 

Just before he reaches the entrance to the cave from he manor, the door that will take him away from his dark and empty cave, he turns around and takes one last look at his brother, standing by an empty memorial for another dead boy. His eyes seem to water. Damian turns around and runs the rest of the way to his room. 

 

Jason’s pissed. Jason’s beyond pissed, actually. Typical of that little shit to go out and die and leave him alone with the more unmanageable members of his stupid family. Typical of the universe to for bringing on this never-ending shitstream of problems. What did he do to deserve this? Or, what did Tim do to deserve this? 

(A good kid, good hero, a smart little bird that always seemed to put the world ahead of himself.)

(Gone now.)

Jason wonders why he even bothers.

He’s angry. It seems like he’s always angry, nowadays, but right now he feels just so. fucking. angry.

He’s on his motorcycle, gunning off to god knows where, with his hood on and an old leather jacket thrown over his ratty tshirt to stave off the cold but it just feels like it’s blowing right through him. He’s chilled down to the bone. Briefly, Jason wonders if he’ll ever been warm again because just he feels so cold.

He wrestles with the idea of going back to the cave. It’s been a long time, but he needs their info and resources to be able to pull off the kind of job avenging Tim will require. He might also need their help, but that’s for another day. On one hand, he’ll have to put up with his sad family: clingy Dickface, the two emotionally repressed idiots, and stoic but heartbroken Alfred. It’s emotionally draining to go back on a good day and this has just been one of the worst, but if he is not going to be able to do this himself…

Jason turns a sharp right at the last minute. Goddamnit. He just can’t stay away. 

TWO WEEKS EARLIER

“Hey, Replacement. Wanna come down to the coffee shop around the corner when we’re finished with these guys? It’s a slow night.”

Red Robin’s face twitches under the cowl because it clearly has not been a slow night, but whatever. It’s almost over and he’s dying for some coffee.

“Fine. You’re paying, though,” he says as he a beautiful roundhouse to the side of a masked criminal in a penguin costume, “Geez, man. I swear Gotham’s criminals are just getting cheesier and cheesier. Penguins, really? Does he not realize how hard it is to fight in costumes?”

“Asshole. Probably prefers it this way. I know I’ve got a bullet with his name on it.”

“Hood,” Tim reprimands, “I thought we were over this.”

“Fine,” Jason grumbles out, “Just don’t blame me when Gotham’s overrun with little penguin minions.”

Tim chooses not to respond to this, instead, “I’m done with mine, you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

They head inside. Jason suppresses a smile at the sight of the exhausted barista’s face when Red Robin and Red Hood walk in and order, straight from a fight, even though he’s got his hood on. Little freak’s like a psychic or something.

Shaking his head, they sit down. Their drinks arrive extra fast.

“Mmmm,” Tim’s inhaling his coffee.

“Coffee up to your standards? Trick question, I know you don't have any.”

“Hey that’s not true,” then, after a pause, “Wait yeah it is. Would explain why I’m here with you in the wee hours of the morning instead of lying in my bed.”

“Ouch, Replacement. You really cut me deep. But we both know I’m the cool one in this situation.”

Tim laughs then, bright and beaming, “Which is exactly why you’re paying. Cool one, remember?”

“Hey, hey, hey. I’m not the one who’s literally loaded.”

“Like I can’t see the gun under that jacket of yours. Besides, you invited me. Means you gotta pay.”

“Why do I even bother?”

A dozen coffees later and suddenly he’s got Tim spilling his guts out across the table from him. WHo knew it would be this easy?

“And Nightwing like, I get it ok? He’s busy. He’s got a job. He lives three hours away. He’s a fricken superhero, for god’s sake. But is seriously replying to one of messages too hard? He’s always got time for the Demon Child, like, I swear. He can't get enough of him. It’s beyond annoying when I see them together and, gah, it’s like an episode of who-can-love-the-other-more or something. And B? He’s the worst-”

“Sound like your life really sucks right now, Imposter,” Jason mouths, fondly, “I remember the days, back when I was but a wee youngin. O woe-”

“Shut up.”

“Fine, but you look really dumb when you’re mad. Not as demonic as Robin or as ferocious as N. Or even smolderingly sexy like me,” Jason has the galls to wiggle his eyebrows at this, “Just stupid. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Like I just said: shut up. Or would you care to enlighten a wee youngin like me on all the reasons you hate these people? Educate a younster?”

Jason doesn't rise to the bait, “Maybe next time kiddo. I gotta go.”

Maybe he imagines it but in this moment, Tim sort of seems to freeze and slump over and for a second Jason can see a second Tim hiding underneath, one who looks bone-tired and weary and a little sad.

“Yeah. I got a couple meetings to attend anyways.”

Jason’s frozen. Here is Tim and he seems sort of cracked and lonely and Jason’s at a complete loss of words. He wonders if he should say something supportive, do something Dick would, but Tim just looks up again and suddenly he’s back to being bright and teasing so Jason just smiles at him, offhandedly throws some bills, and leaves.

He tries his best to put Tim and his problems out of his mind cause sorry, kiddo, but I got things to do and places to be.

 

Bruce is cold standing on the roof of some random tower in the city. His cowl’s down, the wind is blowin, and there’s no sun so his skin is frozen to the touch, but he finds that he doesn’t mind. 

He should not get to feel warm when Tim- his son- will never feel anything again.

His fault, his fault, his own fucking fault for everything. He should have known, he was right there, what did he do? Nothing. Just watched as Tim got shot, just watched as Tim died, watched Tim bleed and bleed and bleed, staring down the cold barrel of a gun with his father’s blood staining his jacket and his mother’s pearls scattered on the ground around him--  
Bruce is a child again, alone and helpless, completely at someone else’s mercy. Quietly he tries to tell himself that (if he gets out) no, he will never be made to feel like this again, yes, he will make sure that no one will ever feel like this again, but the words are caught in his throat and seem to burn him as they come out. 

His child is dead. 

(He just watched and watched and watched it all happen.)

Maybe, if it had been Red Robin who had died, it would have been easier. More okay, somehow, even though he knows he’ll probably never be okay again. 

Red Robin knew what the risks were, knew what dying meant, and knew that every time he was taking off the mask it was just a not today aimed at death.

Tim Drake was just a kid, trying to do some good in a dark and lonely city. 

(A good kid, the best kid, my son.)

(Dead and gone now, dead and gone and not ever coming back.)

Bruce feels sick.

Tim’s latest project: an improved sewer system to replace the rat and Killer Croc filled ones. Bruce pulls the plans up on his wrist-computer, standing on that building. It’s the least he can do for Tim now.

\----

Something’s wrong. Tim’s a smart kid, probably even the smartest one he knows. There is no way he came up with this, this half-assed and outrageous plan that even just a simple read tough clearly suggests will never work and will put WE out of business. 

Like he said, something’s wrong. Did Tim know about the assassin? Did he plan for it? Is he secretly alive somewhere?

The detective in Bruce quashes this down immediately. Tim is very much very dead. 

(Still, what it can’t be to wonder. Jason’s alive, Damian’s alive, Dick’s alive. Shouldn’t that prove something?)

Bruce closes his eyes. He needs to remain objective. He can’t concentrate on anything when he’s like this.

(He just watched and watched and watched the red pool, the sirens light his boy’s face up in red and blue, eyes gently slipping shut-)

Bruce growls before pulling on his cowl on and grappling away into a long night of beating up some criminals. 

 

Dick’s been told he handles grief remarkably well. Well, for a guy who dresses up in tights every night to go out and fight crime, that is.

He knows he isn’t like Bruce, who’s still very much driven by singular instant of the death of his own parents, who still sets the clock to the time they died, and who visits their graves every week and brings fresh flowers. 

He knows he isn’t like Jason, who is in a way still mourning his own death, years ago. Jason is angry and driven and misses who he was before and what he was doing, just a little, and hates the way that nothing can ever go back. 

He knows, even, that he’s not like Damian, who’s dark and brooding and maybe too much like his father, but is still just a child trying to find his own place in the world. Sometimes, he looks at Damian when he isn't noticing and his guard is down and Damian just seems to radiate a kind of jealousy for all the things he missed out on in his childhood and now is too prideful to ask for back. It feels like Damian is mourning the person he never was, somedays, the person that might’ve been had not for his mother’s plans and schemes and cruelty.

Dick had thought he was the most like Tim. Tim who was logical and straightforward and prepared to meet any challenge. Even when Tim’s own parents died, when he was suddenly made an orphan, when he was abandoned and dropped and replaced. Tim who was not made to be Robin because he was sad or because he needed to avenge some long-standing hurt, but because Tim saw the wrong in the world and wanted to make it right.

Tim, Dick thinks, was the brightest one out of all of us, the closest boy to what the symbol had meant. Tim who was Robin because it was right.

Dick is not like them because, even through every hardship that’s been thrown at him, he’s still able to be happy in a way his brothers can’t. Sure he’s sad sometimes and sure, he’s really sad sometimes, but he also happy and free and he loves being a superhero. He may have started because there was a hole in his heart that needed to be filled, but it’s already been plugged and coated several times over, perhaps not the same as before but he’s happy. 

People tell Dick that he handles grief remarkably well and he tells them to shut up. 

They don’t seem to understand that this is his way of grieving, that he has to be happy to make all the dead people in his life happy.

(He’s got a lot.)

And now there’s another on the list, another dead boy who wore his family’s colour and flew just like they did.

If only he had grabbed Tim by the wrist that morning and demanded he accompany Dami and him to the zoo. If only he had reached over and told him that he loved him and that he’s sorry and he wishes things could go back to the way they were before. If only he had gone with him-

TIm died at noon. He hadn’t found out until four. 

Think about it: tigers (dead brother), birds (dead brother), gift shop (dead brother), ice cream (dead brother), park bench (dead brother), laughing (dead brother), fun (dead brother)--

Dick’s never felt so guilty in his entire life. 

It’s like a chant in his head: Tim’s dead. Tim’s dead. Tim’s dead.

Over over over, Dick thinks he’s going crazy. 

(Tim’s dead.)

He feels like he a tiny fish caught in a tidal wave, sinking and drowning and missing the ability breathe, missing his brother like another limb, carving a thousand tiny holes in his heart.

God, it was all his fault.


End file.
